Measuring the usability of a software application can be a valuable part of software design, development, and testing. The usability of a software application may be defined as the ease with which users interact with the software. The usability of a software application may be determined by measuring the user's experience with the software application as the user interacts with the software application. The ease of use of a software application can be a valuable differentiator among software applications, and accurately measuring the ease of use may provide a competitive advantage to a software application that incorporates the results of these measurements.
Usability may be measured during a usability test. Generally, a usability test is a plan or script, during which one or more users complete several planned or scripted tasks using the software application under test. During the usability test, the user may be placed in an environment that is far from the typical environment in which the user may actually execute the software. Accordingly, various fine details of the user's environment may be ignored during usability testing. As a result, the measured usability may not give a true measure of the software application's usability.